Cluttering

Question 1

What is cluttering?

Answer 1

A fluency disorder characteristed by rate that is perceived to be abnormally rapid,
irregular or both

Question 2

When is cluttering most common?

Answer 2

Adolescence

Question 3

Outline the three aspects of cluttering?

Answer 3

a) an excessive number of disfluencies, the majority of which are not typical of people who stutter
b) the frequent placement of pauses and use of prosodic patterns that do not conform to syntactic and semantic constraints
c) inappropriate (usually excessive) degrees of coarticulation among sounds, especially in multisyllabic words. (St. Louis et al, 2007)

Question 4

What are the causes of cluttering?

Answer 4

• Not clearly understood
• Neurological factors
• Genetic factors
• Links to dyspraxia, Tourette’s syndrome, dysphasia, following neurological trauma
• Auditory based disorder/timing

Question 5

What does cluttering present as

Answer 5

A loss of motor speech control

Question 6

What are the 5 dimensions of cluttering?

Answer 6

1) Language:

• Receptive – listening/directions; reading
• Expressive – verbal – thought organisation; sequencing of ideas; poor story telling; language formulation; poor linguistic structure; word-finding; fillers; empty words; revisions/repetitions
• Expressive – written – mirrors spoken language

2) Speech:
- Excessive repetitions of words/phrases syllabic transpositions
- Prosody – irregular rate or tachylalia, poor rhythm, loud but trails off, lacks pauses between words, silent pauses, monotony
- Slurred articulation – omits sounds/syllables-telescopes or condenses words
- Dysrhythmic breathing

3) Pragmatics:
- Inappropriate topic introduction, maintenance & termination- how do you start a conversation, don’t know how to end a conversation, or comments are not linked.
- Poor turn-taking/disinterested
- Poor listening/Impulsive responses
- Lack of consideration of listener perspective
- Verbose/tangential
- Poor eye contact

4) Cognition:
- Awareness: listener perspective/self-monitor
- Attention span
- Memory
- Thought organisation – sequencing

5) Motor:
- Poor motor control – clumsy, uncoordinated; slurred articulation; dysrhythmic breathing; prosodic difficulties; excessive repetitions